linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] [7/8] CPA: Don't flush caches on CPUs that support self-snoop

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Message-ID: <20080211072109.029bb6c5@laptopd505.fenrus.org>
Date:	Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:21:09 -0800
From:	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>
To:	Andi Kleen <ak@...e.de>
Cc:	tglx@...utronix.de, mingo@...e.hu, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] [7/8] CPA: Don't flush caches on CPUs that support
 self-snoop

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:12:56 +0100
Andi Kleen <ak@...e.de> wrote:

> On Monday 11 February 2008 16:04:30 Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:50:22 +0100 (CET)
> > Andi Kleen <ak@...e.de> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > [2.6.25 candidate I believe]
> > > 
> > > The specification of SS in the public manuals is a little unclear,
> > > but I got confirmation from Intel that SS implies that there is no
> > > cache flush needed on caching attribute changes.
> > 
> > I'm hearing slightly different information, but am still chasing
> > this one.
> 
> 10.12.8 in the ia32 manual volume 3a says:
> 
> "
> When remapping a page that was previously mapped as a cacheable
> memory type to a WC page, an operating system can avoid this type of
> aliasing by doing the following:
> ...
> 
> 3. Create a new mapping to the same physical address with a new
> memory type, for instance, WC.
> 4. Flush the caches on all processors that may have used the mapping
> previously. Note on processors that support self-snooping, CPUID
> feature flag bit 27, this
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> step is unnecessary. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> "
> 
> That is exactly the situation in pageattr.c. You're saying the manual
> is wrong here?

I'm saying that we are not following step 2 (marking the pages not present) so 3 and 4
aren't all too relevant. As I said before I've asked internally about this and got
mixed answers so I'm still chasing it down.



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